Moved meetings, midnight emails and mutinies: The ‘insane’ inner workings of uni’s SRC
A dispute has emerged on the University of Adelaide’s student representative council after almost a dozen councillors were kicked off the student body for not attending meetings they claim were illegitimately called.
University of Adelaide student Edward Archer believes he was illegitimately removed as general secretary of the student representative council, in a situation he has characterised as “insane”.
Archer was one of 11 SRC councillors who received an email from SRC president Aiden Zeyang Wang informing them that their position had been vacated due to non-attendance at special council meetings set up to discuss allegations of “a serious governance matter concerning the conduct of an SRC office bearer”.
The Attorney-General’s Department has also become involved after it sent a letter to the SRC on behalf of the Corporate Affairs Commission, which, through Consumer and Business Services, is responsible for administering South Australia’s Associations Incorporations Act 1985 that covers the SRC.
The Commission said it had received a complaint that: “Multiple Special Council Meetings (SCM) were held without at least six (6) council members providing a petition to the President or General Secretary in contravention of Rule 8(o)(ii) of the Association’s Rules.”
The Commission said it believed the alleged conduct would contravene the Act and requested a copy of the petition, as well as minutes from the special council meetings be produced by Friday, August 15, at 5pm, and submissions “in response to allegations that the General Secretary was expelled without being afforded natural justice for consideration by the Commission”.
Asked what he thinks Wang’s motivation was, Archer said he was unsure but that it may be linked to a recent vote rejecting Wang and supporting him as the SRC’s representative as the merger between the universities of Adelaide and South Australia progresses.
“It’s just an insane solution to the problem to kick off half of [the SRC], and again, leaving three democratically elected people on it,” he said.
Archer was interstate, spending time with his family at the time of the scheduled meetings and was unable to attend, while another councillor was away in Europe.
Archer said he has continued to call SRC meetings that removed council members can attend.
“It’s ridiculous conduct, and I think even if it was resolved, Aiden’s conduct would probably have to be formally discussed within the council afterwards anyway to be like, ‘What was all this about?’, because it’s an insane overreaction to not being that favoured on the council,” he said.
“A member of the council emailed me after the whole thing of vacant positions, basically saying that they had a little bit of a crisis because they had all this stuff planned, and if they were vacated from the position, all of that gets cancelled.”
These allegations led to the YouX Election Tribunal overturning the result of the entire YouX (University of Adelaide student union) board and declaring a majority of positions on the SRC void. The SRC is an affiliate of YouX.
There is no suggestion by InDaily that Wang was subject to these allegations.
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Attached to Wang’s July 12 email calling for a meeting to discuss the allegations was a non-disclosure agreement, which Wang told councillors they would need to sign to see evidence against the council member.
Asked about the allegations, Wang told InDaily that the SRC takes its obligations seriously and is unable to comment on them in detail.
Speaking on behalf of the SRC, he said that the student body had received privileged and confidential legal advice about the allegations and that the non-disclosure agreement was attached so that this advice was not shared outside of the SRC.
“Notwithstanding this, we are committed to ensuring that each office bearer fulfils their duties for the best management of the Student Representative Council,” he said.
However, Archer said that while the allegations against the council member could be legitimate, Wang never produced the petition.
He said the meeting was illegitimate and that Wang’s calling it so soon after he sent his email meant the accused council member was not given adequate time to respond.
“That, to me, implied that it was a bit of a rush job,” he said.
“Raising it on the weekend, depending on the nature of the allegations, that person might need to actually seek some professional advice, and I don’t know how you’re going to do that on the weekend.”
Wang said the SRC acted and continues to act in accordance with the SRC constitution and standing orders at all times.
The July 14 meeting failed to meet quorum, leading Wang to call three subsequent meetings on July 16, 17 and 18 to discuss the allegations, which also failed to meet quorum.
According to Archer, due to booking errors, Wang changed the location of several meetings without letting those invited know, as required by the SRC constitution, while the room where the July 18 meeting was supposed to take place was never booked.
Wang denied allegations that the SRC changed the location of its meetings without advising attendees.
“We booked room 111 directly next to 112 (with full glass windows and a dead-end hallway) and then sent a reminder email to the Council prior to the meeting,” he said.
“In addition, any members attending would have had to have walked past room 111 to get to 112, and we do not consider that anyone who wished to attend the meeting would have not known about the change in location, nor could have been missed by me or other members in the meeting room.”
Archer said Wang also rejected a petition from the SRC executive to hold a meeting to clarify the situation and “restore proper governance”, which is also against the SRC constitution.
However, Wang refuted any suggestion that he refused to hold a meeting with the executive.
“The Council was already discussing this matter already and governance concerns are a matter to be dealt with by the Council and not the Executive. These members did not press for calling this meeting after we notified them of this,” he said.
In response to Wang’s denial, Archer said, “It doesn’t matter if we press him a second time because three people requested a meeting of the executive, and he rejected it without any legitimate reason”.
“The executive meeting was to discuss the handling of the internal complaint, which could not be addressed by the council soon enough, but could be by the executive,” he said
“The purpose of the executive is to deal with the day-to-day management of the SRC but also to manage situations quickly when the Council cannot react quickly enough.”
At 12.24am on July 23, Wang sent an email to 11 members of the SRC to inform them that their position on the SRC had been vacated due to non-attendance at the meetings he called.
“This correspondence serves as formal notice that your position on the Student Representative Council has been vacated in accordance with Clause 6(e)(iii) of the SRC constitution,” he wrote.
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“In accordance with the Constitution, this provision has been automatically applied and your position is now considered vacant.”
According to the SRC constitution, “A person ceases to be a Member of the association when … The Member is absent without leave at three consecutive council meetings or at six meetings throughout their term of office”.
Less than an hour later, at 1.06am, SRC members received another email from Archer.
“Apologies for emailing you all at this ridiculous hour,” he wrote.
“Unfortunately, I am unsure what has possessed the President to inform some of you that your positions are vacant, but he is mistaken. Please disregard that email. I apologise for all the drama whilst you are supposed to be enjoying yourselves over the break.
“To address some issues, there have been no meetings held since our last official meeting in the previous semester. The President has produced no petitions for SCMs, and no quorum was met for these illegitimate meetings.”
Wang said it was inaccurate to call the meetings illegitimate and that the SRC provided evidence of this to the Commission.
“The vacancies referred to arose automatically under the SRC Constitution. It was not within my discretion as President to not take that step,” he said.
“The President also has no unilateral power to “fill” vacancies, this is managed under the casual vacancy policy. A Facebook post has been made to the public to advise students to apply for vacancies.”
Archer said the situation was part of a “pattern of behaviour” and that no members from Progress were removed from the council.
“Now his faction controls the SRC, and they can do whatever they want with it, and it’s a shame, because we just finished off a campaign on keeping face-to-face lectures at Adelaide Uni, and myself and the Education Officer were organising meetings with university staff to discuss it, and we were in the process of organising a reform for exams so they’re not 60 per cent of your grade,” he said.
Archer said he and Aiden previously got along “fairly well” and ran the SRC effectively, leading to him feeling blindsided.
He said that as a union board member, Wang has influence over the YouX, so it is hard to get help internally.
For example, Archer said that after the elections were overturned in 2024, he was put under a lot of pressure by the university to fill the SRC positions with casual vacancies, as YouX refused to hold elections.
“The student union itself is like, whenever it can opt to cut out the democratic process, they do, and that’s to do with the board directors – that’s not necessarily the staff,” he said.
“They just don’t have a democratic bone in their body. If they can appoint people, they will appoint people. Only under legislative requirements do they actually allow democratically elected directors to be on the board,” he said.
“It’s just an undemocratic organisation.”
YouX staff work under the direction of elected union board members and are ultimately bound by decisions of the YouX board.
A YouX spokesperson said that “SRC elections are coordinated by YouX at the request of the SRC” and that “[a]t no stage since the last general election has YouX received a formal request from the SRC to hold a by-election to fill any vacant positions on the Council”.
“The Student Representative Council is an independent student body with its own constitution. YouX has no influence or authority over the composition of the Council or the decisions that it makes,” the spokesperson said.
A University of Adelaide spokesperson said “[s]tudent elections at the University of Adelaide are conducted and regulated by the Student Union, YouX, which is independent of the University of Adelaide, with its own board of directors and management team”.
“Any questions regarding student elections are for YouX to resolve in accordance with the robust governance measures in place,” they said.
Asked what he would like to see done now, Archer said “the main onus is on Aiden”, but that he would also appreciate public statements from the university and YouX, and for the union board to censure Wang.
“The main thing I’d like to see is Aiden come back to reality for a second and realise maybe that going nuclear in this situation isn’t the most productive way to go about it,” he said.
“So, it’s up to him – if he wants to stack it out with all of his people, that’s an insanely bad look for himself, the organisation, YouX, the university, and all during merger talks.”
